Endings And Beginnings
by Smidgie
Summary: Under an oak tree, there are beginnings and endings. Two people face the painful truth that they were never meant to be apart. A/H.


Disclaimer: I do not own Artemis Fowl and/or his love interest in this story (who is not named, but you'd be a few fries short of a happy meal not to figure it out). Neither do I own anything else owned by Eoin Colfer and the nutters that publish his books. Unlike most fan fiction writers, I don't want to own them. I like screwing with them and giving them back to their owners. Really, I do. Don't ruin my fun by suing or executing me for stealing them, that would be mean.

-

_really, everything ended with a kiss._

"Haven't we played this scene before?"

_it had been a summer morning, just after dawn, too early for the light to harm her but too late to still be called night. he'd slipped her hand in his own and she'd turned to look the miles up to his eyes and smiled. they had kissed under an oak tree, and he had been in love with her then._

"Perhaps. A long time ago."

_it wasn't exactly the same, after all, for now it was nighttime, and it was cold, and she doesn't smile anymore._

"What did you want to talk about?"

_he wishes he knew, but he doesn't. he only knows that his heart is eased by seeing her, still slender, still brown and auburn and blue. he only knows that looking at her can sometimes make him remember what he has lost._

"Nothing in particular."

_he tries not to look at her when her face twists into a grimace of anger. he should expect nothing less, after all, he was the one who ended it on that summer morning all too long ago._

"Then why call me here? Unlike you, Fowl, not everyone has unlimited leisure time and –"

_her voice drifts away on the wind. she is still so small, so fragile, but a gun still hangs at her hip to remind him she is still no one to be trifled with._

"I missed you."

_he doesn't mean to say it. it bursts from him into the cold air and it burns his throat with ice on the way up but freezes the air with heat once said. regardless, he hadn't meant to say it. but then again, he does a lot of things he doesn't mean to do these days. like get married, or father four children, or trifle with the woman he once loved. as he knows well, sometimes things escalate in their uncontrolled enthalpy until they are no longer recognizable as what they once were. he himself is a prime example._

"Good for you, Fowl. You missed me? Now tell me, what makes you think I honestly care?"

_you once did, he thinks, but doesn't dare to say it out loud. only when her eyebrows snap together does he realize he already has._

"You ended us, Artemis. You have no right to do this to me."

_her voice shakes by the last syllable, and even as he watches her indifference slides away. he registers the use of his given name again, but somehow he cannot bring himself to care._

"You can't just expect me to care again. It's been twenty-five years and not a word from you, and now you want us to pick up from where we left off? No, Artemis. No."

_yet he wonders what is stopping her. she wears no diamond ring on her hand, no sign of marriage or even engagement, and the only other ring there is one 'round her trigger finger, a scar that is a sign of love as much as it is a sign of the long ago injury. yes, he wonders what is stopping her. there is no mark of change in her, age has not touched the looks he knows so well, and even though he is twenty-five years and forever of bitterness away from the young man who held her hand on a summer's morning, he is still something of himself. surely wrinkles, the first twinges of arthritis in his hands worn out from decades of typing… he is still the same, underneath the grey at his temples and the crow's feet at his eyes._

"Why not?"

_he is intense again, he is Artemis Fowl the Second again, as he has not been in so long._

"Come away with me."

_another hasty blurt of words, but her head snaps around and has begun to shake no before he even finishes the sentence. out of the corner of his eye he can see light; the dawn is coming. he knows she is aware of it, but he doesn't think she cares._

"No, Artemis. You can't do this to me. Not again."

_he knows the toll every broken promise has taken on her, but he can't let her go again. her words are cut off by the smile on his lips as he kisses her._

"What – Artemis!"

_she still says his name with that same calmness, he notes, even as her eyes are hazel fire and sapphire flame. he doesn't care, because his are the same. and as the world swoops and changes around him, he feels eighteen and in love with her again, and the sun breaks over the horizon._

_really, everything begun with a kiss._

_it was no longer night, it was a summer morning, and as they kissed under an oak tree he is in love with her now._

_-_

this is your cue to leave me a little present in the mailbox. Go on, you know you want to. (watches despondently as people run away screaming) Or not.


End file.
